


trust yourself

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Hair Washing, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Older Man/Younger Woman, Scars, Shower Sex, Soulmates, Team as YIKES Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 06:41:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14373099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: Written for #cousycomfort. Set between 5.17 and 5.18. Daisy and Coulson talk about trust. Title from the Bob Dylan song.





	trust yourself

It's not yet a scar, but it will be.

It will be ugly.

It's not like her powers, where it's a part of her. A connection to her mother and a reminder of her responsibility.

It's not a scar like the ones she has from busting her ass to stop HYDRA and save innocent lives.

No, this will be a scar about betrayal. About being held down and cut into.

About trust becoming a four-letter word.

The old bandage goes into the trash and she looks away from her own reflection, looks at the shower instead and thinks about how it won't wash enough off of her right now.

Her aching body from fighting with the blond Nazi, just to make sure that Coulson and Talbot could get home safe no matter what.

There is dried blood on her she finally notices, but it's not hers.

Not today, at least.

She groans as she pulls the top off over her head, feeling her muscles protest and she looks at the drops staining it, and sighs, tossing it to the floor.

Then she catches her reflection for a moment, wearing her sports bra and sees another pair of eyes staring back at her, before they bolt.

"Hey," she says, following him out of the room, and grabbing him by his forearm. "Coulson. It's okay."

He frowns at her, like he definitely does not think it's okay, but she just shrugs at him, then lets go of his arm.

At least now he doesn't seem like he's going to flee her presence, but he's obviously distressed about something.  
  
"Is everything...okay? Is Talbot-"

"He's fine," he answers.

"Did you...need to talk?" she asks, ducking her head down to keep eye contact as he avoids it.

"I-I don't know," he tells her, fidgeting a little, shrugging his shoulders up nervously and looking around her room. "The door was open, so, I came in, and-"

"You don't need to apologize," she says again, and he stops pointing at the open door and lowers his hand.

He narrows his eyes then, reflecting on her words, and his face changes. He looks agitated, almost angry.

"I think I do," he says in a quiet voice. "I think I've done something terrible."

"Getting kidnapped by HYDRA isn't exactly a choice. Trust me, I know."

"I didn't think about the consequences. I told you, I said _you_ were avoiding the consequences. But then I realized, I have, too."

She starts to say something comforting, but she finds herself frowning, watching him and she moves past him to the door and shuts them inside.

"I thought that after all of these years," he begins, once she's turned around to face him again. "Us all working and living together, fighting for the same cause, that we would be-"

"Closer?" she interjects, raising an eyebrow at him. "Like a family? Yeah, you'd think."

"But, it's not, is it? I don't know exactly what happened, but, Mack told me enough," he says darkly.

"I see," she says, lowering her eyes now and swallowing at the thought of having to explain it in detail. One more person saying they couldn't believe he would do something like that. "You could've asked me, instead of Mack."

"I was asking Mack about May. He told me what happened to you. I know that we were all broken by the Framework in different ways. This is something...different."

"He's sick," Daisy tells him with a shrug. Because that's what she's been telling everyone else.

"No," he says with a shake of his head, and she can see him looking at the wound on the side of her neck. Ugly. She raises a hand to cover it, then pretends she only meant to touch it with her fingers.

She drops her hand and finds herself staring up at the ceiling, avoiding his gaze again, and fighting back tears she's been holding in for days? Has it been days?

"He drugged me. And tied me down," she can hear her own voice shaking, but it's the first time she's told anyone other than the people who were there when it happened. "Then, he cut into me. I could feel _everything_."

Coulson's face changes, when she finds herself staring at him through watery eyes and gritted teeth. It twists and he looks horrified and then angry. So angry.

"When he did it, he said that when he was in the Framework, he did it to other Inhumans. That he was _helping_ them to understand themselves. He's not sorry, he's-"

His eyes get even wider, and she can see his jaw clenching. It's been a long time since she's seen him this way, and she almost chokes on her own angry emotions fighting to the surface, and then he grabs a hold of her and pulls her against him.

She lets go, lets him hold the both of them up, as she presses her face against his shoulder, and feels him tremble, a quiet sob making its way out of his chest.

"I'm so sorry," he tells her. "I should've thought about the consequences."

"It's not your fault," she tells him, wiping at her face and snorting as she steps back, and sees that his eyes are red rimmed.

"I shouldn't have believed that us going through all of this would have made us closer, instead of changing us. Some of the things that were in the Framework were already inside of us. That's how Aida was able to use it."

"We didn't have time, all of that happened and then we got out, we-we sat down for pancakes," she says, recalling the absurdity of it. "And then-"

"Now I have to face the consequences," he goes on. "Of handing you a team you can't trust."

There is that word again. _Trust._

The reason she wanted Coulson back was not about leading, but she couldn't tell them that. It was about having someone who had her back. Who she could unfailingly trust.

"I trust you," she says, then presses her lips together. Because it almost feels like too much. He's dying, and it's not his fault, but she knows what she is asking for.

" _Daisy_." He says it like he's pleading with her. That he wants to be able to give her that, but he knows he can't promise it.

"You could never promise me forever," she reminds him. "Hell, I can't even promise you I won't destroy the world next week."

He mulls it over and she can see the beginnings of a smile start to form in his eyes, and it finally reaches his mouth, the corner turning up in a smirk.

She brings her fingers against her neck again, fidgeting, and then winces when she remembers the wound there.

"At least let me help you dress that," he tells her. "Since I interrupted you to begin with."

"Actually," she tells him, walking past him back to the bathroom. "I was going to take a shower."

She touches her hand to the door frame and watches his reaction, with a tilt of her head.

"Unless you want to help with that, too?"

 

  
###

 

  
Eager is probably not the right word for it.

They're working their way up to that, and Coulson is still being absolutely careful. A head full of consequences, but she doesn't want to think about any of that right now.

It just feels good to have someone she can touch, that makes her feel safe, and loved.

And he doesn't seem to mind her working out her frustrations on him, pinning him against the shower wall, the water dripping from his nose to his chest, his expression telling her he doesn't mind taking the punishment.

That he might even want more.

She presses her mouth against his hard, teeth and tongue and he opens up for her, moans into her mouth as she takes hold of his wrists and holds them against the tiles and feels another groan across her lips.

He gasps and his head hits the wall when she lifts her knee and presses her thigh against his groin.

"Oh shit," he tells her with a crooked smile. "That...kinda hurt."

Her hand touches the back of his head and rubs it, while he swallows some of the water that has spurted into his face and then wipes at it with his hand and peers at her. Letting himself stare at her in a way that feels new, and she can feel him withdrawing, starting to put his hand over the scar and the blue tendrils radiating out from it.

"Hey look, we match," she tells him, pointing at the spot on her neck, arching it so he can get a good look now.

He lets go of a breath and relaxes a little, gives her a shy smile, and moves her wet fingers over the scar on his heart, guides her as she touches it gently.

"Does it hurt?" she asks him.

"Yeah," he replies, and then holds her hand there when she tries to pull away. "I'm not _that_ hurt," he adds with a flash of amusement.

"I don't want to make it worse," she says, giving him a serious expression.

"I'll tell you when it's too much. Promise."

Her lips part for a moment, about to ask, but she's not sure how to ask for what she wants, without sounding like this was just an act of thoughtless desperation.

Instead, she doesn't have to find the words, because he leans into her, pushing her back into the stream of water, kissing her with intent, and then shaking the water off his face as he goes in for another kiss, sliding his tongue over her teeth, tickling the roof of her mouth.

She sucks in a sharp breath, and lets her eyes flicker open, finds his blue ones staring back into hers, as his fingers slip down her stomach into the v between her legs. She wraps a fist around his shoulder as he presses in further, even with the water running she can feel the way his fingers feel slick sliding into her instead of just wet.

"Mmmph."

Burying her face against his neck, she holds onto him, letting him go deeper, letting out little gasps as she realizes that his breathing is punctuated with arousal, that he's getting just as turned on doing this to her.

Eager is probably the right word for it.

His thumb starts to make small circles, building up the pressure, until she is coming with his fingers inside of her, embracing a release that was long overdue and it surprises her how loud she is. It makes her feel a little embarrassed, but his expression looks so delighted that she can't hold on to it.

"That was nice," she tells him, trying to catch her breath, licking the water off her lips.

"Hmm," he says, with a bit of a smirk, like he's taken that as a challenge, but what she wants right now is something very simple, and she moves him to the corner of the glass shower to the small seat, knocks all of the shampoo and gel bottles off, and he's barely down before she's taking him inside of her, starting to fit their bodies together as she leans over, and watches him start to come undone beneath her, shifting himself further under her and trying not to upset their balance.

She moves on top of him, letting herself take in the feel of going down on him again, and again. The feeling of him inside her, filling her where she wants him, and despite her knee awkwardly hitting the title wall, when his hand grasps her hip, his fingers digging into her there, she moves faster.

His grunts start to pitch higher, and she holds his head carefully and bends to kiss him deeply as he comes inside of her, panting against her shoulder when he finally starts to calm down while her hand smoothes over his hair. And for a few moments, it's just the sound of all the water splashing against the tiles, their bodies resting together. Coulson burying his face against her chest, hugging his arms loose around her waist.

"That was nice," he tells her with a chuckle, his face still pressed into her breasts, sounding like he very, very much means it. She doesn't want to, but, her thighs are burning, so she starts to move off of him, letting him slip out of her and he rubs the pad of his thumb against the redness on her knee when she stands.

"We need to redo this bathroom," he tells her, as he sits up straighter and tries not to slip off the seat, watching her wet her hair underneath the shower.

She helps him up to his feet, and then bends and picks up one of the pink bottles and hands it out to him.

"You've still got my back, right?"

"Front. Back," he says taking the bottle from her. "Sideways. On my knees."

It makes her laugh, and that makes him smile in a way that reminds her of why they are still here. Together.

She turns around as he flips the top up.

It smells like strawberry shampoo.


End file.
